A/N: I'm gripped with the need to finish this fic, or at least, the Turkey Day sections of it. So here's more. :)
Chapter III
My parents toned it down this year with the decorations. The tablecloth isn't loud, although it is gold, but this year instead of vomiting gaudy Santas and reindeer figurines all across it, there's just a couple hurricane bowls mixed with seasonal fruits, pine cones, and shiny round ornaments. It's like someone-safe bet it's one of my sisters-decided to take pity on mom and her Dynasty-era approach to decorating.
I'm glad, although secretly I miss the Rudolph statue. It's my one weakness-his nose is bulbous, even painful looking, and I once, back in third grade, broke it off on purpose just to give it a rest. Then later super glued it back on, finding that it looked wrong without it.
I'll never admit any of this, not even under duress.
The glass of wine in my hand is my fourth, which is more than what I should be drinking since I have a long ride back into city proper after this-but I can't help it. Some nights, a man needs fortification.
Tonight's one of them.
I'm tucked away from the main house, but still on the first floor, still have a view of the guests wandering around, individually or in clusters. A few people have started trickling towards the exit, on their next round of eats or maybe off to face the Black Friday shoppers.
The brunette I met earlier isn't one of them. She's never too far away from me and I know soon I'll need to talk to her again. My mother, AKA the matchmaking demon, keeps sending me prodding looks, and if I don't haul ass it'll get awkward. Not that I care if I hurt anyone's feelings. But I figure, maybe it's time, and this is my best chance to remind myself that, hey, there's needs that might need attending to. Work has kept me busy for so long, I no longer recall very well what it means to have a social life, and the worst part is I'm at a point where I don't even feel the lack of sex anymore.
For a man, that's a new damn low.
So. This brunette's wearing a bulls eye.
Why the hell I can't keep my attention on that frustrates me.
Nearby, I hear the creak of wood, followed by muffled voices. I lean forward, catch sight of the back door, then through the windows on the top, see a tumble of long, dark hair tucked inside a wool cap. Next to it is a slightly taller head, blond and offering a striking contrast.
My brother and B.B. have their faces bent towards each other while they share a private conversation. There's snow falling around them, Lu's smiling and B.B. has that look on her face. The one that usually means Lu's up to no good and pulling her in with him.
There's a split second where I get this urge to stalk over there and interrupt their little coze, the way Lu did minutes ago. No idea why, but it's there, and festering, and the natural reaction I have to that impulse is to indulge it. Why not? My baby brother was being a pain in the ass for no good damn reason, so I'm up, my feet's taking me there when three of my siblings and old Aunt Minerva flock to me, all at once, my aunt even barring my way with her walker that I'm ninety percent sure she doesn't need.
She's my dad's sister, and looks just like him. If he wore a gray wig, and shaved remarkably close to his skin, they'd be identical, even more than me and Joss. It unnerved all of us as kids, and now it still skeeves us out.
Livvie, John, and Shelly don't look thrilled to be there, any more than I do.
"Dude, have you heard they're getting rid of this place?"
John plops down on the seat in the corner, Shelly takes the matching one in the other, and Livvie keeps standing, arms crossed as she waits for my reaction. Aunt Minerva leans back, unfolds her walker, and seats herself on the cushion there, right in the middle of everything.
"What're you talking about?"
"Mom and Dad. Selling the house. Moving away."
"Right, okay." I don't laugh, even though I know they expect me to. The wrong approach to this could lead to fireworks. "Do we need to get into it now?"
Aunt Minerva titters, but the sound is forced. "This one knew. Told you."
Livvie's scowl gets fiercer by the second, and Shelly looks sick to her stomach, which she's grabbing, like the drama queen she's always been.
"How long have you known?" she asks. "Is it Mom? Is she dying like she always says? Why would they sell our family home? Why move? It doesn't make sense."
Livvie's glaring at her. "Shut up."
John somehow has a football in his hand and he's tossing it idly. "Sucks, man. Shoulda told us."
"What's there to tell?" I ask, then continue in a slower tone, patient like I'm talking to a room full of four year olds. "It's called re-TIRE-ment. As in, they're tired of staring at the same walls, seeing the same faces. Time for mom and dad to explore while they can before we put 'em in nursing homes."
"No!" cries Shelly. "We'll never do that!"
My eyes find the ceiling, and I wonder briefly how Shelly has made it all the way to her twenties without dying of stupidity...forgetting to look both ways when crossing the street, blow drying her hair while simultaneously taking a bubble bath. Things she's still fully capable of doing, any day of the week.
"How long have you known?" demands Livvie.
There goes Aunt Minerva's cackle. "They probably went to him to draw everything up! The deed. The will." A long, crooked finger reaches up, pointing to him. "Made sure to get the lion's share of the cookie, too, I bet. Didn't you, Mal?"
"Lion's share?" I tell her pleasantly. "Silly old coot. I made sure to get everything. Every. Last. Dime."
"Asshole," Livvie mutters, but I can tell she knows I'm joking. Shelly on the other hand is starting to tear up a little, beyond hurt.
John's football careens through the air, nearly hitting my shoulder but at the last moment I whip my arm out to catch it. He means nothing by it, if anything he's more irked by Aunt Minerva than with me. I'm about to toss it right back, knowing it gets on the old woman's nerves, indoor horseplay. But in turning, I see from the edge of my vision that Lu's made it back inside, standing in the entrance to the room.
B.B. just behind him.
Both of them wearing the same even expressions on their faces, as they're taking in this wonderful family bonding moment. Judging by their reactions, they heard it all.
I start laughing, pointing at them. "So it is true. You date someone long enough, you start looking like them."
I lift a hand, from a distance framing my brother's face between my thumb and index finger, before moving onto B.B.'s. What I mean to do is run with my joke, pretend to compare their features, but my mouth goes dry as I get stuck on her features. There's several feet between us but everything B.B. related gets a mental zoom.
All I see is her.
For a second, I forget what air is, or that I need to open my mouth and nose and draw it in so my lungs don't feel tight. That little pixie face from childhood's filled out. Gone are the gaunt cheeks. Now there's a tantalizing curve to that caramel skin, and her eyes glitter. They'd been prone to doing that even back when she was younger, except then the light had been borne of hero worship.
Embarrassing for her and me both.
Me, my family-hell, the whole world knew she'd adored me once. Back when Sheila Bennett decided to relocate to Portland and introduced her young granddaughter to the loony bin known as the Parker household.
I don't remember soaking it up. She'd been a waif, shy and quiet but watchful. Hunger in her gaze, a dry sponge that needed moisture, and taking in my family's dynamics was the way to go about it. There'd been almost two decades between us, so at first I didn't pay any attention, except to box my brothers' ears anytime they brought it up to me.
At ten years old, Bonnie Bennett was sure she'd found her soul mate in a man in his late twenties.
Naturally, she gave me the creeps.
My parents thought it was harmless, her grandmother didn't worry about it much except to use it to keep the rest of the kids in the neighborhood in check, letting it get around that the little country mouse from some no-name town in Virginia was friends with the Parkers. That I, specifically, known a few blocks around as the resident jerk, would brook no bullshit when it came to the new kid in town. Nobody suspected how much it grew to rankle me.
Somehow, I avoided letting B.B. know that I wanted to launch a wrecking ball against the fairy tale castle stamped with my initials, that she'd had built out of her dreams. Would've been cruel, and maybe on another planet I could've broken her little teenage heart, but here I was capable of being sensitive, once in a blue moon.
So I don't understand where the occasional animosity on her part comes from.
"Lookit this." B.B. edges along the, miming wallpaper trying to slide horizontally out of the room. "A roomful of Parkers and one stray Bennett. One of these things is not like the other."
Aunt Minerva peers over at her squint-eyed; nobody else reacts.
"Think I'm gonna go...find some more food." And punctuating that with a tiny nervous laugh, she continues edging off.
Because I'm a gambling man, I saunter to the exit, blocking her way, smiling when she tips her head back. Then I get a wave of it, just like in court when I'm arguing for my client, that rush of anticipation when the judge sits looking grave, an entire jury panel giving off 'convince me' vibes, and then my client-eyes wide and scared-looks to me for answers.
Over a decade ago, as a girl, this one had heart eyes any time she looked my way. Now as a woman, I see nothing but defiance.
Daring me to try to tip the scales back in my favor.
"Hey, you never answered my mother's question," I say lightly, letting my eyes skip along her pert nose, her mouth just off-center from the rest of her face, wide and plush and full. The kind of mouth inviting sin, incongruous from the rest of her, and especially those green eyes that always looked deep in thought.
I knew a long time ago she'd grow up pretty. But damn-
This is plain rude, her beauty dropkicking me in the face. I get up, think I'm over it, and then I'm down again, half my teeth missing. Hugging her outside earlier with the snow landing on her face and her lashes and hair...well, that one had been my attempt to knock myself out. But she'd been upset and it touched me a little. My dad's looked out for her over the years, but her being absent all this time...who knew she still cared that much?
But then, it's her. Deep down, there's a voice in my head mocking my thoughts. B.B. isn't the type to shed her feelings that easily.
Though sometimes, she tries to put up a good front.
"About what?" she asks me now, impatient.
If I mention her and Lu, it'd come across as pushy. Desperate, maybe. Which I'm not. It's curiosity more than anything, maybe also disbelief. Because in all those years running around together, it's never crossed anyone's minds that B.B. and Lu would get together.
I know it doesn't fit. There's absolutely zero chance any of it is true. Or so I tell myself.
Her eyes are on the turkey on my sweater. Either that or she's counting my pectoral muscles, which granted are probably putting on a good show just then for her, underneath the thick yarn of bright red encasing them.
I've always stayed fit; outside of work both in the office and out when I'm playing consultant for my family and friends, running and strength training is how I pass my time. It gets boring, but it's far less complicated than the other extracurricular activities my colleagues get up to. Definitely more safe than girlfriends or wives.
Among my colleagues, our assistants a decade younger hustle trying to keep up with me, anytime we hit the gym at the office. They'd probably hate me, if I didn't occasionally soften the blow. Stroke budding egos. Convince them that I spent a long time being scrawny, that getting to thirty and beyond would move them to another level.
But really-what it boils down to is that I have good genes and that working out keeps me busy from other thoughts. Namely, about my dad and end of life care and his funeral and a family business that could potentially go down the drain if my siblings don't get it together. Oh, and most importantly, if mom will turn flakey on us all, go on back to back world trips, and get hitched to a random twenty-five-year old European on a Norwegian cruise.
Anything can happen.
A thought that's reinforced, as I track Lu's hands resting along B.B.'s hip.
Lu's the creative type, would rather strum some guitar or write poetry or some shit. I never understood it, but of all my brothers, he's my favorite. I'm aware that he possesses his own appeal, and I'm also equally awake to the fact that for the better part of the decade, that appeal has mostly been consciously directed to other guys.
Which is why I'm puzzled, how he's failed to mention that he's now dating his best friend all this time.
But I'm not gonna be that guy, the pushy relative sticking his nose in your business until all you want is for the plate of yams to get tossed over his head.
So I grin harmlessly at B.B. and Lu both, hoping it comes across more innocent, less wiley. "How long are you two sticking around?"
She lifts a delicate shoulder, opens her mouth, and then right on cue, in the background, I hear Bing Crosby start crooning from my parents' speakers.
"I'll be home for Christmas," she starts lip synching, just in time to the lyrics, and she's elbowing Lu now, who jumps right into it.
"You can plan on me," he says, his hand rising melodramatic, then fisting as he gives me this dopey sentimental look.
Livvie slides past them put the room, rolling her eyes along the way. "Idiots."
Granted, I haven't been in the company of buffoons in a while, so this show right now has my brows up and pointing to the ceiling. They keep it going, especially once John caves and laughs, intermittently throwing pillows at the pair. Lu and B.B. must practice together a lot, because the little show has no hiccups. When they get to the last verse, Lu strides over to Aunt Minerva, grabbing her shoulders and kissing her cheeks, aiming for longing-yuck-while B.B. stays in her spot, egging him on.
They're young, happy, goofy. I feel overbaked and underwhelming; something in me taking a hit.
In other words, I'm now the old coot, witnessing how much fun the young lovers have with each other.
I forget that the song is over while I'm trying not to brood. I'm taming the need to cringe at my own thoughts, almost succeeding when I feel B.B.'s eyes on me, studying my reaction. It's almost eerie, how focused it makes her seem, like I'm the only thing in the room right now for her.
Making me nostalgic for the good ol' days, back when she was knee-deep in young puppy love.
-x-O-x-
Garrett was back in summer school, for the third straight year, and the first week I spent home, all I could hear were my parents bickering non-stop whether to send him to boot camp before he started his senior year of high school.
I got sick of it, especially since all he did most of the time was brag about girls and bikes, or complain about helping out at the store. Joss and John had been hired on to help run it, and Garrett hated being their new errand boy. Clearly, my little brother had some entitlement issues I needed to straighten out.
One afternoon, I peered inside his room and heard him on the phone, and the way his shoulders hunched as he stared at his computer screen and kept looking over his shoulders, I could tell it was the right time to intervene.
Sneaking up behind him, I snatched the phone away, speaking into it deceptively soft. "Who's this?"
The other line went dead, but the call log showed the number and when my eyes took it in and my brain clicked, I slammed the phone hard on his shin and the side of his head. "Douche bag, don't tell me you-"
"No! No! God, no. I just-she's helping me, okay?"
"With what?" I ask, a lot calmer now.
"A paper."
Couple minutes later, I found myself knocking on Sheila Bennett's door. She had a smile when she answered, pleased but not surprised since I usually popped in to say hi anytime I came back. But the look on my face halted her.
"What's wrong?" she asked me, gripping my arms. "Is it your parents?"
It snapped me out of my bad temper. After I reassured her, I fumbled a bit, since I wasn't a rat but I also needed to get B.B. to realize her way of helping my brother amounted to nothing but sweeping a pile of shit under the rug and spraying deodorizer over it.
"Can I take B.B. out for a couple hours?" I asked her, seeing instantly the best excuse. "Need her help picking out something for the twins birthday."
"Sure it's a good idea?" she returned, although not, I knew, from any real worry that I was up to no good. "You're gonna make her year, but possibly ruin her life."
"No worries, Sheila. I think I can handle a crush."
But her gaze turned hard to read then even while she stepped back and ushered me inside. She was an odd lady; there were times I could've sworn she was reading minds, or looking into the future. Mom was sometimes the same way, except she never spooked me the way Sheila did. I grew uncomfortable, waiting downstairs while she let B.B. know about the impromptu visit.
I wasn't at all shocked when she reappeared minutes later with her granddaughter in tow, trailing far behind. B.B.'s nerves were spelled clearly across her young face. She looked so terrified I had to laugh when I stood.
"Ready to roll, B?" I asked, stepping up to her, absently noting that she now reached my chest but was still woefully short compared to even my youngest sibling. Livvie was to my shoulders and probably had room to grow, but I was fairly sure this was it for B.B.
"Still a munchkin, hmm?"
To my utter surprise, that one earned a glare. The first I'd ever gotten from her, but the sharp green of her eyes fell quickly away when she averted her gaze again.
Strange kid.
The painful quiet in the car didn't bother me, as we rode to the mall. We were halfway there when she moved to turn the radio on, not asking me for permission. Amusing, that, because after years of idolizing me, I fully expected her to be quaking in her shoes with every move she made, but instead she was merely quiet, tuning and waiting for each station. When she settled on something from the top 40, that's when I snuck her a look and changed it.
"Liked that song," she muttered.
"Your laundry list of sins grows longer," I replied, smiling when I caught the tiny quirk of her lips.
Later, at the mall, she dutifully showed me a few things my twin siblings were into and I grabbed a few of them for gifts. Afterwards, I drove to my coffee shops, one of my regular haunts after work, where I got my extra pep for late nights of going through case files at home. B.B. wasn't into drinking that yet, of course, could probably stand to wait a couple years to keep caffeine from stunting what looked like an already weak growth spurt.
But there were cookies and cupcakes among other pastries, which I knew were her Achilles heel. Once I bought her the goodies, along with a milkshake, the change was damn remarkable. Where her thin face had seemed drawn, now her features lit up, and I saw just how pretty she was, underneath her layers of quiet and serious.
After that, it wasn't hard to pick up on the small change in her.
The way I caught her giving me furtive looks, it was obvious she'd started falling into some fantasy scenario where we were on a date. I needed to disabuse her of the notion. Quick and harsh, like ripping off a stuck band aid.
The idea struck, while I waited by the register for my iced drink. A way opened itself up for me. The woman at the counter had been there since last year, was an acquaintance of my sister Ro's, and it wasn't much to get swept into small talk. As we caught up, I learned the girl was on the verge of finishing paying her way through her last semester. Headed off to parts unknown. I didn't remember ever mentioning before in my last visits that I was currently based in Connecticut, but she apparently did.
"I have family I might go see up there," she said, leaning in to me and offering both my drink and a spectacular view of her cleavage. "Maybe I'll run into you."
Connecticut's not that large a state, but it stretched a couple hundred miles, and I didn't really feel like sharing that I was in New Haven. I liked my anonymity.
I was at the point of extricating myself smoothly, had a line ready and all, when it struck me to check in B.B.'s direction. Sure enough, her mouth was slightly open and there was a wounded look to her pointed face as she gazed at me and the barista.
Perfect.
Even though, in that moment, my next move would make me an even bigger douche than my brother Garrett.
I smirked back at the woman at the counter, leaned in to whisper, "Who knows? We'll leave it to chance." Then let my mouth graze her ear, and I slip her my receipt back, but it was blank, didn't have my number, and I didn't bother looking to see her reaction.
What mattered was how it came across to a fourteen year old girl about to start high school, still clutching on to a fairy tale notion of a prince on a white horse.
"We're gonna need to cut this short," I said once I rejoined her at the table, letting my head turn back a little to the counter I just left. "My plans for tonight just got busier."
Her reply was just to sip at her shake, and then fold up the small bag of pastries, and jam it into her pocket. "Sure."
Then she fiddled with her cup, and I couldn't help dropping the act, leaning forward to see if she was hiding back tears.
She wasn't.
When she met my eyes, I saw that flash of anger. Not as quick to pass and definitely a lot warmer than before.
"I lied, B.B. Your grandma thinks I brought you here to help me shop, but that was just my excuse."
"I know."
If there was one thing I'd figured out, it was that this strange kid who liked me without any apparent effort on my part, was also textbook and people smart. In a way that exceeded most teens her age.
"Here's the thing," I told her. "Garrett isn't dumb. He's capable of reading. He's especially good at reading people. Now, if he's got an assignment he doesn't wanna do, and someone close to him comes along. Awwing over his problems. Feeling like she needs to save my slob of a brother by doing his work for him. Well, she's only doing him harm, really."
The way she took in my words, her eyes skipping around before settling back on me carefully, reminded me of a wild animal caught in a trap and ready to bolt.
"Can't fix other people's issues, B. Sometimes they need to figure it out. It's called tough love."
"Got it."
"Do you?" I couldn't help that last part, and I know with the way that I stared back, there was probably an entire crowd of people around us-the barista included-having the wrong idea right then about a grown man sitting there with a teenaged girl, sharing an intense face off.
"Yeah, Mal." She leaned back, cutting off the eye contact, and it left me just a little relieved and also frustrated, the way it now felt like it was in her hands. Her mouth at the corner tilted up, her smile small and loaded with bite. Another first from her, when it came to me. I sensed a lot of scorn in that one gesture. "I get it, okay? Loud and clear. Thanks. I-I'm gonna go."
And ran off, deserting our table. I would've gone after her, had a mind to track her down if only so I didn't have to worry about Sheila yelling at me.
But maybe it was better this way.
-x-O-x-
Lu's only come back to visit a handful of times, not very long ones, but at least I'd seen him occasionally over the years.
B.B. though-for whatever reason, our timing was off. We always missed each other. When she came, I was gone, and when I was home, she never had time to visit. My mother once mentioned it, joking that I must've done something to nip in the bud, B.B.'s old crush, and while I laughed it off at the time, now the woman in question is here, treating me like a thorn in her side. I can't help wondering if maybe mom was right.
But that's being self-centered. It's not about me, right? There's no way anyone would go to all that trouble, just to avoid me. I'm not that bad. And anyway, here's proof positive-if my brother and his best friend's antics can be believed-that the reason behind B.B. and Lu both staying gone for so long is...well, hard for me to wrap my head around.
But there it is, the obvious assumption: they'd found home in each other.
They're trying to spell it out clearly, in the looks they give, their touches. Lu's never been into PDA, but he can't keep his hands off B.B., whose never been touchy-feely herself but now arches like a cat anytime Lu gets near her.
To the common observer, now that she's so obviously no longer a kid-shit, who could blame Lu for trying?
There's curves everywhere, in all the right places.
That moment I caught sight of her, it was her eyes that drew me, no longer that warm or inviting. Now they alternate between icy and hot. But it's everything else about her that keeps me staring, and it's strange because I'm feeling outrage with myself at ogling this woman that I've known since she was yay high. But who knew anyone with such a tiny waist could have those hips that just...sway...without even trying-and her breasts that-I swear, her top isn't tight, but I can see the swell of her bra, driving me nuts-and then I'm trying not to look, but her ass...how the hell did that happen? When?
She's been in New York for years. A billion eyes have landed on her ass, and who knew how many hands, and now I'm dwelling on the thought. Feeling a burn somewhere in my gut, moving up, suffocating me.
Dammit.
Lu's hands have been on her.
I give into this habit I have; when under pressure, my hands rub my face, down up, up down. When they drop away, B.B.'s gazing right back at me with those glittering eyes now no longer carrying adoration. I see a lot of mistrust there, actually. Not the best feeling, facing that. I like to think she knows me better than to believe the bullshit line I'd given my Aunt Minerva about trying to hoard my parents' wealth.
But now it hits me.
Bonnie Bennett never got to know the real Malachai Parker. Sure, we had a moment there in the snow. Embracing for the first time in our thirteen years of knowing each other.
It should've happened a little sooner, I think.
There's a gnawing somewhere, in between my ribs-maybe a little behind it, in between my lungs.
Without thought, I hurl the football and with a muttered 'oof' Lu catches it, giving me an odd look that I can't read. It's smug, and exasperated-he wants to roll his eyes, but then B.B. slides nearer to him, her slim petite hand landing on his arm, stroking.
"Turkey Bowl?" I ask him, tearing my eyes away from the sight.
He nods, his face going steely. "Sure, old man."
No, don't hurt him. He's your brother and he's done nothing wrong.
He's leaning in, his mouth finding B.B.'s hair beneath the cap and giving it a tender peck.
Okay, yeah, I'll beat his ass. Just a little. It is a Parker holiday gathering. Not complete until someone's spilled a little blood.
-x-O-x-
